


Signs and Symptoms

by iceprinceofbelair



Series: Recovery [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007, 5+1 Things, Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Gen, anorexic!Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 13:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceprinceofbelair/pseuds/iceprinceofbelair
Summary: Five times people noticed Q’s strange eating habits and one time they landed him in Medical.





	Signs and Symptoms

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the ED warnings. There are mentions of binging, purging, and restricting.

**1: Mallory**

It was a poorly kept secret that Q was something of a workaholic. 

Even before he’d become the new M, Mallory would find the young Quartermaster still toiling away in his office long after a mission had reached its conclusion. No amount of gentle persuasion or threats would convince him to leave if he was thoroughly engrossed. Once, Mallory had even witnessed Q letting his tea go cold in favour of dismantling a particularly nasty computer virus.

“Aren’t you a beauty,” he’d muttered while he worked. “Seems a shame to take you apart.”

Mallory had cleared his throat then and replied, “A shame, perhaps, but an order.”

(Q, aside from being a workaholic, was also a true master of the eye-roll.)

As of 1400 that Thursday afternoon, Q had been at work for 37 hours straight and showed no signs of stopping. Gathering his most authoritative air, Mallory made his way down to Q-Branch, striding through the corridors with boffins moving seamlessly out of his way. 

“Q,” he said from the doorway.

When Q looked up, his sleep deprivation was obvious in the bags under his eyes and taught hollows of his pale cheeks. From the looks of things, sleep wasn’t the only necessity Q had bypassed these last few days.

“Sir,” Q nodded, gazing at M curiously over his laptop. “Do you need something? I’m afraid 007 has yet to hand in his paperwork but I’m sure that comes as no shock to you.”

Mallory’s lips twitched. “I’d been more concerned if he’d been punctual about it.”

Q huffed out a laugh and returned his eyes to the screen. Mallory leaned against the doorframe, marvelling at how quickly Q managed to forget his presence.

“Actually, I’m here about you,” Mallory went on and that definitely got Q’s attention. A fleeting look of concern flashed across his features as he met Mallory’s eye again. “You’ve been here almost two days straight. Go home.”

Q sighed. “I have to-”

“I don’t recall giving you any time-sensitive assignments,” Mallory interrupted pointedly and Q had the good sense to flush. Raking his eyes over Q’s thin form again, Mallory couldn’t help but think he looked positively ill. “Christ, Q, don’t you ever eat?”

At these words, Q gave an almost imperceptible flinch. Mallory narrowed his eyes. He might be working a desk job now but he’d been well-trained as a spy, even been pegged for a double-oh before his back injury. He’s been trained to notice these tiny details and he’s been trained to probe.

“You can’t survive on just tea, you know,” he added with a touch of humour in his tone.

Unfortunately, Q had also been well-trained and knew exactly when he was being probed. His eyes narrowed.

“I have a fast metabolism,” he said with an air of finality which clearly stated that he did not want to have this conversation. 

One more probe.

“Your minions worry when you don’t eat.”

Q raked a thin hand over his face, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. His wrists looked so delicately small; Mallory was sure he could wrap one hand round both of them with ease.

“It’s possible that I’m a little...forgetful,” Q admitted as though it pained him. “I’ll try to be better in future.”

Mallory sighed at the clear dismissal and took his leave. He’d have to talk to R about making sure the Quartermaster got more than tea in his system at least once a day if for no other reason than to stop his own heart aching with concern when he saw Q’s clothes growing baggier on his frame.

 

**2: Bond**

James Bond had an extremely annoying habit of turning up at Q-Branch whenever he damn well pleased and it was going to make Q prematurely grey likely before the year was out. Q could always tell when Bond was in the vicinity by the wave of unease which swept across his entire department. Field agents in Q-Branch had been almost unheard of until Bond had taken a special interest in the Quartermaster.

“I wish you wouldn’t lurk, 007,” Q said with exasperation as he examined a microchip held carefully with a pair of tweezers. “You make my minions antsy.”

Bond flopped into one of the seats on the other side of Q’s desk and threw his feet up onto the corner. Q didn’t even have to look up to shove them off again.

“What do you want, 007?” Q asked, sounding every bit as long-suffering as he felt.

“Dinner,” said Bond simply, surprising Q so much that he lost his grip and the microchip clattered onto the desk before bouncing to the floor. 

Q rolled his eyes and ducked down under his desk to retrieve it.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said pointedly. “The cafeteria is on the third floor.”

Bond smirked. “I’m surprised you even know that. You’re practically a twig.”

Q scowled, poking his head up to glare at Bond. “Did Mallory put you up to this?”

The genuine flash of confusion assured Q that Bond’s observation was merely co-incidence.

“It’s not exactly a secret,” Bond said and for a moment Q’s blood ran cold. “You’re even worse than me when it comes to working through mealtimes.”

At these words, Q relaxed but Bond’s expression remained somewhat on edge, almost analytical. Q dismissed his worries as typical MI6 paranoia and finally retrieved his microchip before it could disappear into a tangle of cables.

“So?”

Q raised an eyebrow as he settled himself back in his seat. “So?”

Bond gave an exasperated eye roll. “Dinner? With me?”

Despite the terror the mere thought left in his stomach, Q could help but chuckle. “If you’re trying to ask me on a date, it’s going to require a lot more bribery. Bringing your equipment back in one piece might be a start.”

“But you’re open to it?”

Q shooed him out of his office without another word.

 

**3: Eve**

Eve Moneypenny was almost exclusively a Tesco patron but she’d wandered into Lidl looking for some of those excellent waffle biscuits she claimed only to buy in case she had guests. But Eve never had guests; she just liked waffle biscuits.

One person she certainly hadn’t expected to find there was MI6’s Quartermaster, staring with intense concentration at the back of a packet of almonds.

The problem with being a spy was that it was very difficult to turn off and, for some reason, Even found herself watching Q from behind the fruit shelves while he glared at his almonds, muttering something under his breath. It spoke volumes about how engrossed he was that he didn’t notice her. It was difficult to spy on a spy but Q was making it surprisingly easy.

In the end, Q didn’t buy any almonds. She snuck a look in his basket as he passed while pretending to consider some strawberries. He had startlingly little - a pack of crackers, carrots, and a six pack of sparkling water. 

She watched him check out from her innocuous position in the queue a few spaces behind him. He used the self service and hesitated when he scooped up his crackers from his basket. She saw him examine the packet again, fingers brushing over the nutritional information almost nervously. She wondered how important the nutrition section of a packet of cream crackers could possibly be. Apparently, it was important enough that whatever he saw there made him abandon the crackers and leave with nothing but water and carrots.

Eve forgot her waffle biscuits.

 

**4: R**

R found him in the bathroom in the Q-Branch corridor at 0300. 

He’d disappeared an hour earlier the instant he’d signed off comms with 004 and he’d been breathless throughout the entire exchange. 004 hadn’t questioned her Quartermaster’s strange tone as he’d talked her through dismantling a particularly complex bomb. Of course, the double-ohs were trained in bomb defusal but Q had always been something of an expert, probably because he spent so much time building the bloody things and then trying to make them compact enough to fit inside keychains.

“Sir?” She said warily, knocking cautiously at the door as she heard him heaving beyond. She pursed her lips. Q barely ate as it was; the last thing he needed was to start throwing up what little he remembered to stomach.

She heard him groan something unintelligible from beyond the wood and, when she tried the handle, she found the door unlocked.

“I’m coming in,” she said, giving him until the count of three to regain whatever dignity he’d like to hold on to before slowly opening the door and stepping inside. 

Q was, unsurprisingly, bent over the toilet with one arm resting on the pan and his forehead tucked into the crook of his elbow. His breath heaved in and out of his chest. R crouched next to him and gently placed one hand on his back.

“M’alright,” Q muttered. “Just a bug.”

“Didn’t think there was anything going round,” R countered. This wasn’t the first time she’d seem him like this. She wondered if perhaps it was an anxious reaction to a tense bomb-disposal situation. It would explain why he didn’t want to talk about it. “I hope you get over it soon. You barely eat enough as it is.”

Q groans. “Why does everybody keep saying that?” He grumbled but there was no heat behind it. 

“Probably because you barely weigh ten stone sopping wet,” she quipped, watching Q stiffen.

“Nine,” he said and he seemed to choke on the word.

R stilled. “You only weigh nine stone?”

Q cleared his throat and started to use the wall to get to his feet, pointedly ignoring R’s offered hand. She watched him struggle, exhausted in his own body. 

She was by no means a medical professional but even her limited medical knowledge told her that, at 5’7, Q shouldn’t weigh so little, even with his skinny build.

“Q,” she began but fell silent under his withering glare.

“That’ll be all, R,” he said, voice clipped with professionalism as he shoved a tictac into his mouth; the very fact that he carried them on him said enough. 

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Yes, sir.”

 

**5: Tanner**

Despite how often Tanner brought him food - R had had a quiet word with him about her concerns for Q’s health - it often went untouched. 007 was currently away on a mission which required Q’s continued presence on comms and Q’s work-life balance had become even more unhealthy...somehow.

Tanner had taken to hanging around Q’s office more often in the hopes he might be able to guilt Q into eating what he brought for him. It didn’t work.

It was early in the morning, Tanner hadn’t been sure of the exact time since Tuesday, and the third day into Bond’s mission. Bond’s grasp of Greek wasn’t as good as it had once been and certainly didn’t extend to reading so he was constantly finding himself in situations which were proving difficult to navigate. It had everyone on a short fuse.

He knocked sharply on Q’s office door and let himself in, entirely missing the  _ do not disturb  _ sign. In his defence, he couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d slept.

Q was there and he was surrounded by food. Sweets, mostly. Tanner spotted bags of M&Ms, mini doughnuts, brownie bites, and more Twix wrappers than Tanner had ever seen in his life. Caught, Q looked frightened - shameful.

Tanner tried to smile. “It’s good to see you eat,” he said and this turned out to be entirely the wrong thing to say.

To Tanner’s horror, Q’s eyes filled with tears and he turned away, pacing over to the furthest wall and leaning heavily against it, face turned towards the ground. 

“Please go,” he whispered and his voice sounded so painfully fragile that Tanner didn’t have the heart to argue with him.

He left. From behind the door, he heard a muffled sob.

 

**+1**

Q collapsed in front of the entirety of his branch on a Wednesday afternoon. He’d been working for days on end again since Tanner had caught him binging and quite suddenly found himself feeling dizzyingly sick. He’d tried to brace himself on the edge of a nearby table - he had a tendency to pace with his headset while he talked to his agents - and force out the last of his sentence. Bond’s voice sounded worried in his ear.

“Proceed to the...to the nearest…” Q’s head swam. “007, you need to…”

Against his will, Q’s voice became paper thin and his legs buckled under him. He remembered the pain of hitting his head and felt hands on him before he just couldn’t stay awake anymore.

He woke up several hours later attached to a drip with Eve sat by his bed, tapping away on her mobile. His throat felt dry and his head ached. She looked up when she shifted but her smile was more of a grimace. 

“You scared the hell out of your staff,” she said and the reprimand made Q shrink. “You’re on forced leave for the next week.”

Q knew this was more of a punishment than it was for his benefit. He felt like crying.

“I don’t mean to,” he croaked. “Be this way, I mean.”

Eve put her hand over his where it rested on the sheets. She looked sad. 

“Psych wants to see you before you’re released,” she went on. “Doctor says you’re underweight but I don’t think that comes as a shock to anyone.”

Q couldn’t meet her eye. He felt the familiar cloying hunger settling in his stomach coupled with the incessant anxiety about eating anything which might make him put on weight. When he was full, which happened very quickly these days, he felt nauseous. When he was empty, he felt guilty. He’d been recovering and now he was almost as bad as he’d ever been. Thankfully, he’d been caught before he could return to his high school state where he’d starved himself down to eight stone and landed himself in inpatient care for longer than he cared to remember.

His hair had been falling out recently. He felt his heart skip beats sometimes when he lay in bed. The pain in his stomach crawled up through his ribs and into his chest and his throat.

Frustrated with himself, he roughly brushed away a stray tear.

“I don’t want to be scared of food anymore, Eve,” he whispered, feeling very much like he was bearing his soul. Eve said nothing, expression carefully neutral. “I- I want to get better. It’s just so overwhelming and I’m...scared.”

Eve stood and leaned close. Her lips brushed his temple, one hand coming to rest on his cheek. 

“One week mandatory leave,” she said. “I’ll eat lunch with you at your flat. Bond will probably track you down at some point. I’m told he became exponentially more difficult after you left. He’s been giving R a hard time.”

Her thumb stroked gently over his cheekbone. He closed his eyes.

“Nobody expects you to recover overnight,” she assured him softly. “We’re all here for you, Q. It’s not okay, but it will be.”

Q liked that sentiment. Things weren’t okay yet but they would be - eventually.


End file.
